We were asked recently to meet with a commercial landlord who had a number of premises rented out to a variety of businesses. These included office-based but also premises used for manufacturing and storage.

The Landlord understood they had an obligation for common areas and for arranging for certain services to be routinely inspected, such as mains electricity and gas. What they wanted to know was what else did they needed to do or to ask for.

Taking a look around the various premises it quickly became obvious that most of the businesses renting space were unlikely to have completed fire risk assessments. Our recommendation to this Landlord was to request that each business provides them with a copy of their fire risk assessment.

In fact, it’s the same advice we have given to a number of clients as how can they protect their asset if they don’t know what’s going on in their tenants business.